ABSTRACT
Drugs have been placed in the intraocular infusate during vitrectomy surgery to repair rhegmatogenous retinal detachment with proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR). This method can produce local delivery of a relatively high drug dose, avoid systemic complications, and minimize additional surgical risk. Despite improvements in surgical technique, PVR remains a common and significant vision-threatening complication of retinal detachment repair and trauma. To minimize PVR, care is taken to ensure that all retinal breaks are closed, cryotherapy is minimized to reduce Retinal pigment epithelial cell dispersion, and intraoperative bleeding is avoided. Corticosteroids have been investigated as a potential treatment for PVR. The efficacy of Retinoic Acid in PVR has been evaluated in animal models. To minimize systemic toxicity and increase retinal tissue drug levels, local delivery methods to treat and prevent PVR have been investigated. 5-Fluorouracil was one of the first drugs to be studied in human trials of PVR. Dexamethasone alcohol and triamcinolone acetonide have been studied in PVR animal models.
